Which agencies will Trump eliminate?

**Stage 1 — Blind analysis (ignore current market price):**

I treat "eliminated" as the formal ending of USAID as a standalone agency with its statutory authorities terminated or transferred out of existence. Historically, major federal agencies are rarely abolished; changes more commonly take the form of budget cuts, reorganization, rescoping, or transfer of some functions. Legally and practically, abolishing USAID requires either positive Congressional legislation repealing or significantly altering the statutory basis for the agency and reassigning its authorities, or an extraordinary executive reorganization that is sustained despite likely Congressional, administrative law, and judicial pushback.

Key structural facts that drive a low baseline probability:

- USAID's core authorities, programs, and funding are embedded in numerous statutes (e.g., foreign assistance authorizations, appropriations acts) and in long-standing bilateral/multilateral commitments. Eliminating the agency cleanly requires rewriting or repealing parts of those laws or establishing durable funding and programmatic alternatives. - Congress controls appropriations and has rarely surrendered that leverage; even a President hostile to an agency still typically needs Congress to enact abolition or to defund it completely. - There is strong institutional inertia: thousands of staff, contractors, foreign partners, and program commitments. Removing that infrastructure quickly is costly, disruptive, and politically salient.

Balancing those constraints against the political likelihood of an administration-driven push to end USAID leads me to a low base probability. Trump has both motive and a track record of pursuing dramatic reorganizations and of trying to shrink foreign-aid commitments. He can (and likely will) pursue aggressive budget proposals, convert program funding priorities, appoint leadership hostile to the agency, and attempt to subsume USAID into State or a new White House-led structure. Those tactics can substantially reduce USAID's effective operations without legally abolishing it.

Given the above, my independent assessment is **22%** that USAID will be formally eliminated during the term.

**Stage 2 — Market calibration (compare to current market price Yes=0.44 / No=0.56):**

The market currently prices a considerably higher chance (~44%) of elimination than my independent 22% estimate. There are plausible reasons for that divergence:

- Market interpretation differences: Traders may be treating any decisive functional dismantling, renaming, or transfer of USAID's programs into another office (e.g., a USAID->State transfer or a White House-managed foreign aid office) as "elimination". If the market uses a broader, looser definition that includes functional death or absorption, the probability should be higher than my stricter statutory interpretation. - Political tail risk and asymmetric payoff-seeking: Prediction markets often over-weight tail events when participants speculate on politically volatile outcomes. Trump’s unpredictability, recent history of ambitious executive efforts, and the possibility of unified Republican control of Congress at some point raise the perceived tail risk. - Information asymmetry / event-driven trades: Large political players or participants with inside knowledge of administration plans or Congressional intent (rumored reorganization proposals, drafts, or deals) could be driving the price up even if the normative legal and institutional hurdles remain significant.

Why I stick to 22% despite the higher market price:

- Formal abolition is materially different from heavy restructuring or defunding. While I think a strong campaign to neuter USAID operationally is plausible and likely, I do not think statutory elimination is the most probable route within this term. - The legislative and legal barriers, international fallout, and domestic pushback make a successful complete abolition within four years unlikely unless Republicans control both chambers of Congress and make elimination an explicit legislative priority — a political configuration and level of sustained commitment that has nontrivial probability but is not the baseline.

Trading implications: If you believe the market is pricing a broad definition of "elimination" (functional death or absorption), then the market price may be more justified. If you insist on a legal/statutory abolition, the market appears to be offering value on No (i.e., predict No). The appropriate trade depends on how you define "eliminated" and your time horizon for legal/legislative processes.